Night fell over the Land of Lightning.
On a mountaintop.
Hyuga Lan wore a black robe and a white mask symbolizing The Fool. Beside him stood the Third Kazekage Human Puppet, disguised with the Gale Mask.
In the distance, beneath the clouds hanging over the mountains, stood a hidden village: Kumogakure.
Through the Tenseigan's insight, Hyuga Lan saw a tightly woven detection barrier surrounding Kumogakure.
That meant sneaking into the village without anyone noticing was hardly realistic.
But that wouldn't stop him.
Hyuga Lan placed a hand on the Third Kazekage Human Puppet's shoulder and poured a large amount of Tenseigan Chakra into him.
The Third Kazekage Human Puppet had already been imbued with a degree of sentience. Now, golden light began to gleam in his eyes—a sign that his sentience had grown stronger. The Tenseigan Chakra also bolstered his Magnet Release.
Sensing the enhanced aura of the Third Kazekage Human Puppet, Hyuga Lan nodded in satisfaction.
"Go. Draw everyone away..."
At Hyuga Lan's command, the Third Kazekage Human Puppet channeled his Magnet Release, forming a pair of Iron Sand wings behind him. With a powerful beat of the wings, he shot into the distance.
Hyuga Lan watched the Third Kazekage Human Puppet disappear, then waited quietly where he stood.
Inside Kumogakure.
In the sensory unit responsible for the village's barrier, a helmeted man jumped to his feet.
"Something's wrong. Something is flying toward the village.
"It's moving incredibly fast.
"Th-this chakra signature... Damn it, we're under attack! We're under attack! Hurry and inform Lady Yugito!"
As the sensory unit members rushed to alert the village's leaders, a piercing whistle came from the sky outside.
A black pillar of Iron Sand, two meters in diameter and nearly twenty meters long, plunged straight down toward the Raikage Building.
Yugito, stationed inside the Raikage Building, noticed the disturbance in the sky. When she saw the iron pillar hurtling down with tremendous force, her pupils contracted, and a deadly sense of danger welled up within her.
With no time to wonder who was attacking, she ordered everyone to evacuate the Raikage Building at once.
Then she entered her Tailed Beast Cloak and rushed onto the roof. After a moment's hesitation, she channeled her cloak and formed two enormous hands to strike the descending pillar.
The giant hands formed from Tailed Beast Chakra met the pillar with a shrill grinding sound.
Yugito pushed herself to the limit, forcing the Iron Sand pillar off course. It narrowly scraped past the Raikage Building before crashing heavily into the ground with a deafening roar.
As the pillar struck, clouds of smoke billowed up, obscuring everything from view.
Yugito stood amid the smoke. Her ears twitched as she heard someone dropping from the sky. The enemy had arrived.
She formed a great hand from her Tailed Beast Cloak and swept it forward. The gust it created scattered the surrounding smoke and dust.
A black iron pillar stood embedded deep in the earth. On top of it stood a strange figure, clad in a concealing black robe and wearing the Gale Mask.
Iron Sand powder constantly flaked off the pillar and gathered around the mysterious man in the Gale Mask, as if the grains were protecting him.
W-was that Magnet Release: Iron Sand?
Damn it, could this guy be the Third Kazekage, who had mysteriously disappeared?
Why was he attacking Kumogakure?
The distinctive Magnet Release: Iron Sand made Yugito suspect at once that the man before her was the Third Kazekage.
And she wasn't entirely wrong. The figure in the Gale Mask was indeed the Third Kazekage Human Puppet. Hyuga Lan had awakened his sentience with the power of the Tenseigan and infused him with a large amount of Tenseigan Chakra.
The goal was to use him to draw enemy forces away, then slip into Kumogakure while everyone was distracted and search for what he wanted.
So the Third Kazekage Human Puppet had just one task for now: cause trouble in Kumogakure.
"You think wearing a mask will hide your identity?
"Your Magnet Release has already given you away. Third Kazekage, unless you give us an explanation today, I'm sure Lord Raikage will demand one from Sunagakure when he returns."
The Third Kazekage Human Puppet paid Yugito's threat no heed.
He swept both hands outward, and the Iron Sand pillar snapped in half.
The upper half shot into the sky and broke apart into a multitude of cubes.
The lower half sank into the ground, eventually vanishing beneath the earth.
"Clap."
The Third Kazekage Human Puppet brought his hands sharply together.
As he channeled chakra, the Iron Sand cubes in the sky began to collide. Spikes and iron cones sprouted from them.
Below, the ground trembled as black Iron Sand spikes and iron cones thrust up from the earth.
In moments, iron spikes spread across both sky and ground, trapping Yugito in a vast net.
This was the strongest technique the Third Kazekage Human Puppet could unleash: Magnet Release: Iron Sand World Method!
Yugito stared at the Third Kazekage Human Puppet, who hadn't said a word and had immediately unleashed his ultimate move against her. After a moment of stunned surprise, she quickly recovered.
She relied on her speed and agility to weave through the world of the Magnet Release: Iron Sand World Method, searching for a way out.
Yugito was incredibly fast in her Tailed Beast Cloak. The Two-Tails' nature gave her a considerable boost in speed, and the Third Kazekage Human Puppet was still only a puppet. Against a truly powerful shinobi, its limited sentience wasn't enough to make escape impossible.
Yugito soon realized this. With her enhanced speed, she found a weakness in the Iron Sand World Method and cleverly escaped.
But while Yugito got out, the Kumogakure Anbu trapped inside the Iron Sand World Method were pierced by the iron spikes one after another. They were left impaled like pincushions, their deaths gruesome.
Seeing this, Yugito burned with rage. She no longer cared whether her opponent was the Third Kazekage. Anyone who dared attack her village had to die.
Yugito looked up at the Third Kazekage Human Puppet hovering in the air and opened her mouth. A huge amount of chakra gathered before her, forming a black sphere: a Tailed Beast Bomb.
Without hesitation, she launched the Tailed Beast Bomb at the Third Kazekage Human Puppet as soon as it had formed and she had him in her sights.
Knowing he couldn't withstand the incoming Tailed Beast Bomb, the Third Kazekage Human Puppet dodged to the side.
But the moment he moved, the Tailed Beast Bomb exploded.
Rumble!
A small mushroom cloud seemed to bloom in the night sky...